When I received this citronella plant last summer it was small, only had one main stem with a few leaves and was not too healthy. If you look at the old post and look to the bottom (last image) you can see the plant was pretty bare of leaves and was mostly stem.
I grew it out in my large greenhouse through the summer and transplanted into a larger container to bring in for the winter months; as it would have never survived outside in the winter months.
Well it has been growing leaps and bounds inside my one grow tent in my grow room. I actually have it in my clone and veg tent for cannabis and it has really helped with those plants too. I had read months ago about how citronella is a natural bug repellent and decided to put in there to help keep the little gnats at-bay around my cannabis plants.
Guess what? It works too!
I have not had an infestation of gnats in that grow tent for the last few months; plus it does no harm to the cannabis plants' growth. Win-Win
I have decided that I'll be propagating the citronella plant in the upcoming days so I can one for every grow tent in the grow room. So as soon as I can get Mr Golden D to take me to get some new potting soil, I can whip this new plants up.
One thing that really surprised me was how the plant grew (it stands about three feet in height) and the other day when I went to water all the plants in the grow room, I saw five different places on the citronella where flowers had bloomed. I never knew citronella would do that! Did you?
They're pretty little, delicate looking flowers and now I'm in the process of researching more about them to see what use I can get out of them. Any ideas or knowledge from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
I did read an article online about making my own citronella oil from the plant's leaves and am seriously considering doing this.
That Is Until I Saw This Article From The Practical Garden Plants' Website
This flowering plant with nearly the same smell as Citronella Grass is marketed under the same name, but has no noticeable mosquito repelling effect and is in the Geranium family.
An interesting note: Unlike other plants where only the flowers have a scent, the Citronella Geranium emanates scent from the leaves of this plant whether it has flowers or not.
Other than being edible and smelling good I couldn’t track down any other potential uses for this plant
So.. it looks as if I have the geranium variety citronella plant and after reading the difference between the geranium one and the other citronella plant, it looks as if perhaps I could make some potpourri from it.
But this new discovery of the two different varieties, doesn't explain why, as I mentioned above, how the plant is heeding off gnats in the grow tent; when the Practical Garden Plants' website states the variety I have isn't mosquito repellent. Because the essence of citronella (which is quite unique) is very prominent when you go near or touch the plant and leaves.
That's a good tip that it helps keeps the bugs away
I have seen some kind of this plant in my farm, grow wildly sometime ago. thank for sharing this @goldendawne. and I have something in my farm that I need to take pictures and share here to know the benefit of the plant, because most of them may have incredible benefit.
Really interesting post, thank you very much.
Oooooo! Adding this to my list of plants to grow!
I wonder if they would help deter whitefly in the garden...
That's really interesting, I've never seen that in my whole life. Thank you so much for sharing this. May your plant grow more.
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Sounds like it has been growing nicely and it's always good if your plants grow and not die. I don't have plants because I don't want any right now haha.
Well, you sort of answered something I'd been pondering... whether citronella and "lemon geraniums" are basically the same thing. Used to grow those when we lived in Texas and the weather was warmer...
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Howdy today goldendawne! what a cool discovery and I've decided you can grow anything! lol. wonderful job and the oil should be interesting too.